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Friday, March 21, 2014

Same lineup expected for lastest crucial game

Benoit Pouliot arrived in Columbus late Thursday night after the birth of his daughter and participated in this morning’s optional skate at Nationwide Arena and coach Alain Vigneault expected him to be in the lineup tonight.

As a precaution, though, Derek Dorsett did not stay on the ice late with the extras, keeping his legs fresh in case he’s needed tonight.

With Pouliot in, Vigneault expects to keep the lineup the same as Tuesday’s 8-4 win at Ottawa with Henrik Lundqvist making his fourth straight start.

Thursday night was a tough one for the Rangers playoff chances as the Devils, Flyers, Blue Jackets (3-2 at Montreal), Lightning and Red Wings all won and the Capitals earned a point with a shootout loss at Los Angeles.

The Rangers and Blue Jackets each have 78 points but the Blue Jackets have played one fewer game (including tonight, the Rangers have 12 regular-season games remaining). The second-place Flyers have 81 points in the same 69 games the Blue Jackets have played entering tonight. Meanwhile, the Capitals, who have played 71 games - the same amount the Rangers will have after tonight’s game - are one point behind the Rangers. The bigger problem for the Rangers in the wild-card picture is the Red Wings, who also have 77 points in 69 games. The Maple Leafs, who currently hold the first wild-card position, have 80 points in 71 games.

“I’ve got to believe with everyone’s environment, everyone we know, everybody’s talking about it , ‘Did you see last night?’ ‘Did you see what happened?’ so everybody’s up to date on what’s going on,” Vigneault said. “But our focus needs to be on the game at hand and tonight we’ve got a real tough opponent, probably one of the hardest working and highest-compete level teams in the league and it’s going to be a real tough game for us.

“I find that within groups guys feed off your top players,” Vigneault added. “Some people thrive on this and every game, every shift, every time you’re on the ice you have the opportunity to decide the outcome of the game and usually your elite players, your top players thrive on that opportunity to make a difference and I’m confident that’s what our guys are going to do, from our goaltender on out. Right now it’s about having the right preparation, knowing the things we need to do to have success against that team and then going out and execute. To execute players have to prepare themselves. You hear the word ‘zone’ a lot. It’s the same thing here, as an individual sport, players have got to get in their zones so they can make the right reads and execute on the ice. We help them with the team preparation but that individual part is theirs.”

Noting that Nash is “a very quiet type of player,” Vigneault said he hasn’t seen any outward signs from Nash about what this game might mean to him but he doesn’t need to see the signs, he knows it’s special.

Another ex-Blue Jacket, Derick Brassard, playing his second game back in Columbus after the Rangers’ 4-2 win on Nov. 7 that Nash missed due to a concussion, conceded Nash is “probably excited about it.”

“Honestly, we didn’t talk about it,” Brassard said. “He played here a long time, he’s probably excited about it. For us, it’s just another game, another game in the regular season where the two points is important.

“We talk about one game at a time,” Brassard added. “We look at the games and we look at the scores. Some nights you’re going to have help and some nights you’re not. At the end of the day, you have to win your game.”
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About

ANDREW GROSS covers the New York Rangers for The Record and Herald News, having joined the North Jersey Media Group in November 2007. Gross also covered the Rangers and New York Jets, as well as St. John’s basketball and Army football, for Gannett Newspapers and The Journal News (N.Y.). He graduated from Syracuse University in 1989 with a degree in newspaper journalism.